A while later Gini rose from the bed and went into the bathroom. She felt blind; blinded by its darkness, still blind when she switched on the light. It had the predictable luxury of such hotels. It was lined with marble. Rowland’s belongings—a brush, a comb, a shaving kit—had been thrown down carelessly on a shelf. Above the basin was one mirror, behind her on the opposite wall was another. Gini looked at a room that would not stay still, in which reflections doubled back and the veins of the marble seemed to pulse. She made herself focus; she looked into the mirror; she looked at herself.

Sex was like pain, she thought. If you were without it for a time, you forgot how all-powerful it was. It was sex she could see in this mirror now: its imprint could be seen on her mouth, which was swollen; on her skin, which was flushed; and on her body, where his hands had touched and gripped. She ached with the pleasure of being fucked; her thighs were wet; she smelled of sex, leaked sex, and she could still feel the little aftershocks of sex, the residual tremors of sexual delight that came to her as she remembered how he had done first this, and then that.

This, then, was what she was. These specifics measured out her betrayal. For all her certainties, all her past vows, she had still arrived here, in a situation she had never envisaged, and would have claimed was beyond the bounds of possibility. She had made the choice, and to compound her own faithlessness, the sexual pleasure had been intense.

Why had she had that fixed, stupid, adolescent certainty that only Pascal could give her this? Why had she convinced herself that love altered the very nature of this act and gave it a resonance and intensity it otherwise lacked? What a very female mistake, she thought: what a woman’s error; how many men would claim that? That belief was unfounded; she could read its untruth in her reflected face, and feel its untruth in her womb. In betraying her lover, she had learned a most bitter and unwelcome truth about herself.

She ran some water in the basin and washed herself. She returned to the bedroom. Faint light came through the closed curtains. Rowland McGuire was lying on his back, his head cradled in his hands. He turned as she entered; Gini crossed, and knelt down beside him. Naked, he was very beautiful. The hard lines of his body still gleamed with sweat. She rested her face against his shoulder and pressed her mouth against his skin, which tasted of salt. He placed his arm around her quietly and drew her closer, his hand resting against the jut of her hip.

The intimacy and peace were also unexpected. Neither spoke for a while. Gini felt the remembrance of his kisses and embraces wash through her body. She was the first to speak.

“Once, Rowland,” she said. “It has to be that way. It was just this one time. Nothing happened before it, and nothing must happen after it. It was accident, chance.”